Forever By The Sea
by Favorih
Summary: Rose's final hours have come, and it's time she returned home. Titanic is waiting for its last passenger.


He was so very cold, almost as cold as the water that stabbed her. She had watched him melt into the darkness of the ocean, never to be retrieved or seen or heard of again, not until just a few hours ago. Rose had recalled the despair she had felt in those moments. Blowing that whistle was hard when her voice was gruesome with despair. That night will never leave her.

Time didn't slow for Titanic's wounds to heal.

She could still fill that thick, throbbing gash in her heart, but the pain of those ungloved ails would never compare to closing her eyes to see his smile. It could never compare to his voice, ringing so mellifluous in her ears each time quiet came to pass. It made her heart break each time, yet it also mended it — if it could ever be mended.

She could have barely imagined the wonder her life would have brung if she had left that ship with Jack Dawson, but she did know it would have been wonderful. Life would be an adventure in the great wide somewhere, each day bringing something knew and exiting. There would be no slickers for the rain, perhaps no dinner table for supper or no heavy layers of textile she used to adorn, but what a life it would have been. For so many years she found herself lost in a world where Jack dwelled only; the real world never knew his name. Not a single record, not eighteen dollars to his name, but he would forever be in her memories.

Rose was unable to crane her neck enough to peer out the door of such a fragile boat — so much smaller and fainter than _she_ had been. And what a boat she had been. Titanic was mammoth, elephantine, yet she carried herself with the grace of the ebbing waved that carried her. She held a magisterial air about her that could wind the strongest of bellies and drop eyelids. When Rose had looked upon her majesty for the first time she was so ignorant to the impact it would leave on her life in just a few long hours.

Back then only the most blasphemous of thoughts lingered, and the sunlight was darker than it should have been. She was miserable, sad, enclosed in a world with a many puppeteers but not one was her. She was in a dark place back then, dark enough that even delving into the sullen depths of the Atlantic sea seemed to be the only way she could ever cut herself free from those binding strings.

She could not describe the primal fear she felt, could feel, could hear as Titanic finally distillated beyond the water surface once gracing her with its gentle grip. There were so many screams, so many cries, all of whom would soon die. She clung to him, even as they spent Jack's last hour together, she knew he wouldn't change boarding that ship for the world. She wouldn't change boarding it for the world.

Rose clutched her quilts so close to her frail body you could read the wrinkles in her chest. Despite the gruesome fate of She, Rose never thought I'll of her. She closed her eyes and saw golden accents, peachy sunsets, perfumed air, luxuriating passengers. She would feel wind lace through her hair as she stood at the very front of the ship where she and Jack spent the last spray of daylight Titanic and some 1500 of the other passengers would ever come to see, air sheeting across her face as it did his. Three nights ago she was dangling over the very back of the ship, wishing an end to her life. She had met him then, Jack Dawson.

As Rose's breaths drew shallower, she could feel her end draw nearer. Love was a mean, fickle thing, but she felt it every time she closed her eyes. It was the only way she could see Jack Dawson again. Each time she closed her eyes she was yonder in the main docks, billowing towards him. She would almost hover up the staircase and graciously reach for him. He would accept, still adorned in his charming white shirt, and they would join together.

She smiled as she recalled the first time she saw him at the bottom of those prolific, mighty steps, shaking hands with the air. He was so charming, in that suit she was sure someone had lended him. He must have been so nervous, but he didn't show it.

The other passengers would clap and throw hats, and Rose knew she was where she belonged, she had returned home. Captain Smith, Fabrizio, Olaf, Lovejoy, and two thousand passengers. She and Jack, their homes would be forever by the sea.

With every breath Rose took, she felt herself die a little more. She had lived a long, fulfilling life, but it was time to return to him. It was time she boarded Titanic's hailing decks one last time, for soon she would be forever by the sea too, and Jack would be right with her, and this time, she'd never let him go. She would never let him go again.


End file.
